Participants and discussants at the 7th Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) holding in Benin City has attributed the bane of underdevelopment in the nation to what it calls a ‘structural’ defect in the Nigerian constitution.
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Speakers at the meeting, including the managing director, Champion News-papers, Ugo Onuoha; editor,Triumph Newspapers, Musa Tijani; Victor ifeji of the Nation and president, Nigerian Bar Association, Barrister Joseph Daudu, a servior advocate of Nigeria, stressed on the need for the Nigerian nation to continue to exploit the various avenue that will bring about peace and harmony.?? ?
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According to the national president of the NBA, Barrister Joseph Daudu, a servior advocate of Nigeria, Nigerian leaders must recognise that the responsibility imposed on them by their positions in power is a sacred one and they must be guided by the dictates of truth, honesty, sincerity and the fear of God Almighty.
Daudu said, “For the people, greater responsibility rests on them to be the barometer of the leadership,”adding that, “All in all, no one group can be absolved from blame for the dangers signal to Nigeria’s democracy”.
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Speaking on the topic, “Danger Signals to Nigeria’s Democracy” at the 7th annual conference, chairman of the occasion, Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, listed these signals to include such crises at Jos, the 2011 post-presidential election, Niger Delta, economic and financial crimes, Boko Haram and Road Carnage and declared that the frequency and regularity of these crises can pose great danger to the Nigerian ship of state if unchecked.
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Of the Jos crisis he said it “bleeds the heart and exposes the fragility of Nigeria in terms of not only structure and unity, but in the clear unwillingness of leadership (state and federal) to confront the problem globally”.
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To solve the crisis, Daudu proposed “nigerinising everybody. That is, there should be indigene if you have elected to live among any ethnic group in Nigeria for an agreed number of years and you demonstrate a desire to live there; then such a person should be qualified to append as his local goverenment and state, such place of his domicile”.
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On the 2011 post-presidential election crisis, the NBA leader said that the incidents once questioned the unity of Nigeria, but that government chose to sweep it under the carpet.
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